


the first time ever I saw your face

by navaan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam finds Natasha more than a little attractive. Who wouldn't? But actually getting close to her is not something he dares hope for before it's already happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the first time ever I saw your face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverdanced](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverdanced/gifts).



The first time he sees her there is blood and grime all over her face. Her face is on television and what he is seeing seems like a science fiction movie more than the news.

There's Captain America, who should not be alive, and Tony Stark in his shiny Iron Man armor. There is an alien god named Thor, who looks like he could hold his own in a one and one with the Hulk, who is jumping and crashing into buildings and taking apart _aliens_. And there are the two SHIELD agents that nobody has ever seen before, but whose faces are now forever edged into collective memory.

The archer throws an arm around her shoulders and she laughs as they group makes their way behind the perimeter the police is still warding off. It's the last he sees of her, but it makes a good picture in him mind as she laughs.

* * *

The second time he sees her she's smiling. Cleaned up nicely. A hot woman in a hot car.

She's also here to pick up Captain America, who banters with her. It's hard to wrap his head around all that. Captain America, Steve, bantering and having a sort of dry self-depreciating humor seems enough to take in. But he can't look away from the beautiful woman and her pursed lips as she pokes fun at Steve. Sam smiles at her and she smiles back, quirking her eyebrows as if she's enjoying the game.

Well, Sam is certainly enjoying the little glimpse of her, too.

* * *

The third time it's all different. It's not this far away dream woman on TV fighting aliens. It's not the hot girl in the hot ride picking up Captain America, who Sam just met. She's Natasha and she looks beat, as she stands behind Steve who is also covered in dust and grime in front of the door of Sam's own home.

He doesn't need to ask how they knew how to find him.

People like them have their ways.

They're also on the run.

Sam is the only friend that Steve can turn to without making it worse for someone he knows. And what the hell, who in their right mind would turn away two Avengers in need?

He's debating the sanity of the move when said two Avengers are inside his little home, using his bathroom to clean up. He debates it even more when he thinks they are having a moment in his bedroom, in an half-undressed state and both looking like the peak of humanity.

“She's hot,” he quietly remarks to Steve when they are together in the kitchen and Natasha is moving to the bathroom, to test the waters. 

“She's also deadly,” Steve replies, deadpan, oh so obviously missing the point.

Which is hilarious. Sam grins. “She says she was your first kiss since the ice.”

“God, yeah, of course, that's the first thing she would tell someone she has only just met in this kind of situation. Why am I not surprised.”

“Makes for a good story,” Sam says and grins even wider. “To break the _ice_ , you know? So how was it?”

“Really, in the middle of all this _that_ is what you want to talk about?”

Sam has to laugh. “I'm trying to lighten the mood. And you're avoiding my question. So how was it?”

“Well,” Natasha comments from the doorway. “He's rusty.” She grins at Sam and Steve rolls his eyes at the both of them. That actually makes it worse and they nearly break down, unable to hold back the laughter. At least that makes Steve finally laugh with them and if Sam has learned something during his time as a soldier, it's that you take the lighter moments where you could get them. Especially when you are going to war.

* * *

Steve lives with the Avengers now. They still see much of each other and Sam is holding up the promise he made and looks for Steve's “missing friend”. He sees Natasha now and then when he goes to see Steve.

Sam flirts.

Natasha flirts back.

He is never sure it means anything beyond the obvious fun of the game.

“She and the archer...” he asks Steve one day and Steve looks at him quizzically and then over at Natasha.

“Hawkeye,” he corrects. “Not as far as I can tell, Sam. But what do I know? I'm old and rusty and grumpy geezer.”

“Right, Mr. Dinosaur, forget I asked.” But Steve grinned, with that small impish grin he got when he was actually amused.

Sam thinks he might be more perceptive than he lets on.

Would figure with him being Cap an all.

* * *

At this time of night he is not expecting someone to come knocking on his door. There's literally no time of day he would expect someone to knock on the window. But he knows superheroes now and much weirdness can be taken for granted if you hang out too much with Captain America and friends.

“Hi,” she says, as she climbs inside, holding herself awkwardly. 

“Natasha, what are you doing here?” He helps her when it becomes apparent that she has trouble getting in on her own strength. 

“That's not a nice way to greet a lady.” She's wearing her dark black suit and holding a hand pressed to her lower stomach. He can see blood seeping between her fingers.

“I see,” he mutters. “You were in the neighborhood and thought, oh, right, my friend Sam will be glad if I bring trouble to his doorstep and drip blood over his floor. It worked out so well last time.”

He knows she always has pale skin, has secretly asked himself once or twice how his hand would look in stark contrast put against the whiteness of her skin, but she looks much paler than normal today. It's worrying. 

“Are you complaining?” she asks, getting herself over to the bed to sit down.

“Gunshot wound?” His mind is already switching to professionalism.

She shakes her head. “Girl got lucky with a knife.”

“Girl?”

“What? You thought I was the only little assassin Mother Russia sent into the big wide world?”

Somehow he has managed not to even think about that. “Rivalry?”

“Something like that.”

“No Hydra?”

“Sam,” she says exasperated and is already busy pulling at a zipper and starts peeling her torso out of the skin tight material of her suit. More pale skin is revealed and he stares, shakes his head to get it back into the game, and hurries to the bathroom to get the first aid kit. He has no idea if it will do any good. She's inspecting the wound when he comes back and sets the kit down beside her on the mattress.

He helps her get it cleaned. She sews it up herself.

“Isn't there a whole medical bay now that Stark keeps equipped for you guys?” It's hard to watch her so casually stitch up her own wound without so much as flinching. It's even harder to look at her, exposed and vulnerable. He likes her warrior look, likes her cold and untouchable, likes her fierce and flirty. It's hard to see her half-naked and hurt on his bed. He has no idea what to do with that.

He helps her to wrap it and it looks sloppy and wrong.

But that allows him to get close enough to inspect all her scars and there are plenty.

“Not nice to look at,” she says and he realizes that she's been following his gaze to a bullet scar. Self-consciousness like that doesn't fit her either.

“No,” he says. “On the contrary. Makes you seem real somehow. Imperfections, you know, are what make us uniquely us.”

Their eyes meet. She isn't smiling. He can't look away from her, his hand still lingering over the wound.

Then her lips are on his and the sweet smell of her hair fills his nose and he can't help it, his arms come up to gather her against his chest and she pulls him closer, too. He can't tell if this is a game or an extension of the flirting they do all the time, but it's hot and intense and, damn, she knows how to kiss. He's mindful of her wound, but she isn't, pulls him down on top of herself and sighs.

He's lost.

He's a goner, damn it.

* * *

They don't talk about it, but they take a shower together. He makes her breakfast and she smiles and flirts a bit, checks her wound and eats.

She kisses him before she leaves – this time walking out the front door as if it's the most natural thing in the world. “See you around,” she whispers like a promise.

He wants it to be true; wants her to stay, just _wants_. But he knows that's not how this works. It's not who they are, who she is.

* * *

He doesn't expect to see her again before something comes up. But when he comes home from a long day on Bucky hunting duty, feeling tired and ready to fall into bed, there she is sitting at his kitchen table, holding his favorite mug with two hands and wearing nothing but one of his favorite sweatshirts.

“Hi,” he says and grins.

“Hi,” she replies and sips at her coffee. “Tired?”

“Not anymore.”

They share a look and smile.

There really is no need to say anymore.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The First Time I Saw You Smile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056679) by [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva)




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